The present invention relates to educational devices that illustrate the basic concepts of computers, and which may add and subtract in the binary system.
Computers are highly sophisticated and complex machines whose basic operational concept is little understood by the average person. Computers use the binary or base-2 number system for calculating, rather than the commonly used decimal or base-10 system. The binary system is extremely useful in computers since any decimal number may be expressed using combinations of only zero or one. For example, the number 26 in the decimal system would be 11010. The leftmost digit in 11010 represents 2 to the power of 4, the second from the left represents 2 to the power of 3, the third from the left represents 2 to the power of 2 and so on. The only difference between the binary system and the decimal system is that in the decimal system the base is 10 rather than 2, so that in a five digit number in the decimal system, the leftmost digit would represent 10 to the power of 4. For example, in the number 40,000, the 4 implies the base 10 raised to the power of 4 times 4.
Since the binary system is able to express any number by using only a 0 or a 1, electronic flip-flop circuits are used in computers to represent these numbers. Flip-flop circuits are merely circuits that have two stable positions. Therefore, one position is indicative of a 1, and the other position is indicative of a 0 when representing numbers in a computer.
In order to teach the concept by which computers operate, it has been known in the art to provide mechanical flip-flops that are capable of being positioned in two stable states. Such mechanical devices utilizing these mechanical flip-flops have been used to illustrate addition and subtraction, as well as in some cases, division and multiplication in the binary system. Such devices not only have the advantage of teaching a student how a computer functions, but also allows him to see how mathematical operations actually work. It stresses an understanding of the mathematical processes utilized, rather than having a student learn by rote the operations required in everyday life.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,403,459, 3,006,082 and 3,390,471 all show educational devices that are used to compute in the binary system in order to simulate the operation of a computer. However, all these prior art devices are very costly and exceedingly complex that more often than not cloud the very issue to which they are directed; to wit, the teaching of computing in the binary system. These prior art devices also have the disadvantage of being cumbersome and parochial in their use.